The Social Dilemma - Series- Wake up People- 1

Yesterday I felt hopeless and ashamed !!!

Because I watched "the social dilemma" documentary.

After watching it, I checked my logs yesterday, look at my numbers!! I have logged into Instagram 64 times!! 64 FREAKING times for no good reason.

This is after I imposed a restriction for myself to reduce the screen time 15 days prior to this.

I use only Instagram and Whatsapp, no other apps. I also don't watch some random videos in explore section, I mostly follow people of my particular interest and spend most time in their posts and IG TV videos only (good for me).

Most of my screen time will be spend on Instagram in comparison with Whatsapp and I wanted to reduce it for many reasons:

1. To reduce the distractions, means I use to open Instagram out of habit and just not process any information from it. Just scroooolllll, just hopelessly scroll and realize I lost 30 mins of my time.

2. To reduce the screen time basically.

3. To prevent myself from being influenced.

4. To sleep early and wake early.

So the following are the conditions I have for myself:

1. My Instagram time was timed to 1 hr. If I am having an extension of time, it could be only once that I can extend and then I will not be able to open the app in any means till the day ends. (good right ?)

2. I turned my Winds down from 10.00 pm to 7.00 am, meaning my screen will be turning into greyscale in this time.

3. I activated Do not Disturb from 10.00 pm to 7.00 am, meaning no notifications will pop-up except for the alarm.

I was doing pretty well for the first few days, I would forget about using Instagram and my logging time was less than 30 mins mostly and few days I might finish off my 1h and wait for next day.

I will feel my phone says "Better luck next time, girl".

Then came the days when I was sick and stayed home for 4-5 days.

You might have guessed, what would be the situation now!!

I started finishing 1hr and extending, two days went by extending the time by 30 mins or 45 mins, then I came to "No time".

But initially I atleast had the restriction applied for next day, but one day I cut-off that also, thinking "who cares".

Initially I used the excuse of being sick and since I had time to kill, I went on time extension.

But how ironic is it? We need to give rest for both body and mind while being sick, but I did the exact opposite. How clever??

My body was at rest but my mind was fully occupied by social media.

Now do you feel pathetic for me? Do I feel hopeless for you too ??

So, I had to impose the conditions on myself again, this time stronger !! after watching "the social dilemma".

So what is that? "the social dilemma"

It is a documentary movie released by NetFlix in which experts who worked in top social media apps like FaceBook, SnapChat, Instagram, Pinterest, Gmail, Reddit etc., but they have resigned their jobs from those giant money making machines because of "Personal Ethical Concerns".

Do you wonder WTF??

Let me explain briefly on what fact they have ethical clash, between their professional and personal personalities:

These are the people who were with these apps when these apps started. They were among very few people of that particular app's employees. Thus they completely know the purpose of the app and how it worked for getting that purpose done.

Once the Twitter's CEO told, "they did not know that this app will not be in this magnitude when they created it".

Do you understand what this means???

The app did not stick with it's initial objectives, now it is in another dimension with Artificial Intelligence involved. It tops the world for spreading FAKE NEWS and recording adverse consequences of that Fake news.

Let me tell you more simpler.

All the apps that we are using now uses Artificial Intelligence for better experiences.

How do you think these Apps makes money??

Ads?

Right?

But how do those advertisers know if we saw the Ad, only if we see that Ad, it will benefit the advertiser. Right???

Now question yourself, that we are scrolling endlessly and the Ad comes there because you came to the place where that Ad was placed??

The answer is Yes???

But the reality is different, we being watched, recorded, assessed, evaluated for each and every clicks and scrollsss!!!

You: Ahhh!! Don't tell us the same story again, we know that the app records the information and use it later.

Me: Yes that's true, except for the fact that the information you feed by every scroll and every click is taken as input every millisecond and the output is displayed as Ads within the same second.

Could you imagine??

There is one human who is watching you from other side and giving you Ads and selling you? Noooo, its a machine!!! which decides and commands if you have to see an Ad now or not !!!

These decisions will be taken by these machines based on very complex machine learning algorithms depending upon how much time you spend on a particular post before scrolling.

It is a MACHINEEE which decides what you should see in the screen!!!

How meticulous right???

These people thought it is very bad to human mental and physical health and it did not align with their basic ethics!! so they left the firm.

Now it makes sense? Why they quit??

Now they conduct various programs on Anti-Technology concepts.

When the question "What is the first thing we need to do for reducing the screen time?"

All these tech people unanimously suggested "Turn off the Notifications"

Have you ever thought how these notifications work??

If for example, we have 2-3 news apps in our mobile. There will be 100s of news posts in those apps happening everyday but we get notified for only 15-25 updates usually.

Why??

It is because of the algorithm which collects data from all of our mobile and suggest a topic which might be of interest to us and it will make sure to have a sure shot of us reading the news article.

Bad??

Yes it is!!

Just turn off your notifications and then see how peaceful you are!!!

It is not that we should stop using these social media right now. But be mindful in the time you spend in it.

Here's what I am doing now:

The conditions are same as earlier but with 30 mins time limit for Instagram and 1 hr time limit for Whatsapp.

Turned off all the notifications except for calls.

Not carrying a mobile charger and headphones with me.

Carrying a BOOK with me to read if in case I need some relaxation/distraction between the work.

Bedtime: I keep my mobile out of reach, have a watch, a book and a water bottle near my pillow.

I was not able to cope up this notification less first day, I was continuously checking my Whatsapp if somebody would search for me if I am not available immediately.

But nothing of that sort happened, they just called me instead of waiting for me to reply.

I felt very pathetic of myself for this!!!

Now I am starting to understand that world will adjust according to You, and you need not adjust to it always!!!!

So, how are you planning/doing to reduce your screen time and increase your mental peace if you choose to??

Please do comment here so that everyone who reads this will get benefited and motivated.

PS: I would strongly recommend you to watch "the social dilemma" documentary, here is the trailer to give you an insight on it : https://youtu.be/uaaC57tcci0